Herschel Walker: ‘I Can Play In The NFL Today’ Says 52-Year-Old Heisman Winner


Herschel Walker, the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner who went on to rush for 8,225 yards in a 12-year NFL career, has a message for today’s NFL running backs. He’s 52 years old, he says, and he has no doubt that he could do what they do.

“I can play in the NFL today,” Walker confidently declared in an interview with USA Today published Thursday. “I couldn’t take every snap. But running backs nowadays don’t play every down. Now they send in the choir section.”

Walker, who is 2-0 in mixed martial arts bouts — he last fought in 2011 — says that he has no doubt he could handle what the NFL throws at him.

“Physically, I can still do it,” he insisted.

Herschel Walker was a collegiate legend at the University of Georgia, where he played just three years but finished in the top three Heisman vote-getters all three years — the only college player ever to achieve that feat.

Rather than wait for the NFL draft, Herschel Walker left Georgia after his junior year and signed with the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League. The USFL was a short-lived pro football league that played an 18-game spring schedule. At the time, the NFL did not allow college juniors to join the league, but the brand-new USFL did.

Walker’s team, the Generals, was owned by Donald Trump — an owner Herschel Walker still admires.

“He would be a great owner, and a credible owner,” Walker said, responding to reports that Trump is in the running to purchase the Buffalo Bills. “People can think what they want to think about Jerry Jones — he’s a terrible general manager, but he’s a great owner. He has done a tremendous job in marketing his team to keep it relevant. I think that’s the same thing Donald Trump would do with the Buffalo Bills.”

As for his own NFL comeback, Walker said he is not seriously considering it. The oldest running back in pro football history was the great Jim Thorpe, who played the position at age 40 — for the Chicago Cardinals in 1928.

But Walker said that if Trump were to take over the Bills, he wold be open to joining that organization, even if not as a player.

“I’ve got another good personality that could do some other things,” said the ever-assured Herschel Walker.

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